Thursday, April 2, 2015

I'm a very opinionated person and I don't think that there is much I
can do about that. Most of the time I try to not force my personal
opinions on people, some of my friends and family might disagree, but I
do honestly try. I like to think most people arrive at their opinions
honestly and they represent a perspective, however different than mine,
that is informed by things I might not be able to understand. I do know
that my opinions on things have changed or maybe even evolved with time
and I'd like to think we are all on a path headed towards our dreams.
Maybe at different points on the path but still on a path. If I can help
someone down the path with me, I try to do it. What I won't do is push
someone to make ground on something by force.

In my
own head I don't think I have a single personal philosophy that guides
my life. Most of the time I feel like I'm drowning in my own self doubt.
However, I do get put into the position of offering advice on peoples
lives more than I'm comfortable with. Most of the time I just try my
best to nudge people in a positive direction.

Lately
however, I've been giving more and more thought to what I would call my
personal brand of guiding wisdom. Now I obviously don't have the answer
to eternal happiness, world peace or even how to not annoy the crap out
of everyone by accident. The reality is, I'm pretty useless at making
other peoples lives better most of the time, despite my grand ideas for
changing the world.

What I do know is that when I'm at
my most depressed or discouraged that I can always dig myself out. Even
if it feels at the time like I never will. I don't have a magic silver
bullet but I do know that every day I can chose to do at least one thing
that makes my life or the life of those around me better and I think
that mostly sums up my approach. As I've thought about it, I've boiled
it down to something fairly concise.

"Do Something"

What
I mean by that is you might not be able to control everything that
happens to you and you also might not be able to control the way you
feel about it. What you can do is move yourself down the path. Sometimes
it's a moon surface leap and sometimes it's crawling through glass, but
progress is progress. No, this won't guarantee your bills will get
paid, you will save your marriage or heal a childhood pain. It might not
even make you feel better. What it will do is put you a little closer,
bit by bit.

If you are like me, most things feel
overwhelming. I can be pretty hard on myself. I once told someone, "You
can't say anything to me more hurtful than what I've said to myself." I
think it might be one of the most honest things I've ever said. What I
have found though that helps me more than anything, is doing something.
Anything. As long as it's a positive step in the right direction. Even
if it's just one small step with a million more to go, it's one step
closer to my final destination.

No matter how small the
gesture it can at least help you get into a better head space. It could
be something for yourself, like getting chores you've been avoiding
knocked out or something huge like finally telling someone how you care
about them. You don't even have to do it for yourself. Sometimes when
I'm at my lowest it helps to think about the things I wish others where
doing for me at that moment and do it for someone else. One example is,
for my own narcissistic reasons, I really like things I post to social
media to get liked by my friends and family. Sometimes a post that I
feel really strongly about or connected to will get almost completely
ignored and it will send me into a tailspin of self doubt. In all likely
hood there are multitudes of reasons people didn't take the time to
click "like", and most are probably not related to me or my personal
feelings. So, even in this silliest of first world problem situations, I
try to reach out to others, click like on things my friends post or
leave a positive comment. I would never do this disingenuously. I'm
always clicking like or give a positive comment to something I actually
like. I'm just trying to go a little more out of the way to make someone
else feel good.

Now, does this achieve anything
measurable. Most of the time no. Most of my friends are likely unaware I
do this. Does it suddenly make all my neurotic obsession over whether
people like me go away? not at all. What it does though is put me at
least half a step closer to feeling better and more often than not it's
enough to give me a clear head to see the next step I need to take.
Sometimes that next step is one of those moon surface leaps that I can't
believe I didn't take before.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hinge my day to day feelings on these silly little acts. Mostly I've learned about myself that I really like the feeling of creating something so I try to focus on those kinds of activities. I have loads of hobbies and things that I do that keep me moving forward. I think those count too. What I try not to do is sit around and think of all the things I should be doing and know for sure I won't do. I'd rather focus on the things I can do than the things I can't.

So now I think I can
feel a tiny bit more comfortable in offering someone advice. Just "Do
Something." As long as it's positive progress, it's worth it. No matter
your situation, you can at least do something to make it better. No
matter how insignificant it might seem at the time. I even keep a small
daily journal where I try to write down the positive things I did that
day. I also write some of the negatives but as long as there is at least
one positive, it helps.